Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

Duncan is my second grader.
Where did the week go?

Math is usually no problem for Duncan. However, this week something came along and threw him for a loop. In Kumon his pack went from 27 x 2/3 = 36/x at the bottom of page 158 to y x 2 + 3 = 9 at the top of page 159. This is when I realized that he could look at 18 = 36/x and just know the answer without really understanding what he was doing. So, out came the white board and we looked at equivalent fractions and then at the equivalent division problems that he has been doing in Saxon. We also reviewed division of fractions. So, then we applied those same concepts to solving for an unknown. I think he has it, but because he didn’t get it immediately all of a sudden he is feeling a little mathematically insecure and this is something new for the little guy.

Last week I posted that we would do the composition exercise in MCT orally, but Friday evening I decided to let the little guy have a go at it. (thanks in part to blog posts where other kiddos had completed a similar exercise in MCT Town!) And, well, what do you know, he really enjoyed it. The book had columns of words and the child had to build a sentence by choosing a word from each column. Then, he had to write a story based on the sentence. He liked it so much that he did it again on Saturday.

Saturday- working on the rough draft

Finished story on Saturday-
Full but Thirsty Life

Yikes! The muddy chicken clucked greedily toward the worm. He was muddy, thirsty, and hungry. Then, the chicken found a big, juicy-looking worm. The chicken snuck up quietly behind the worm and gobbled the enormous, soggy worm in three delicious bites. He felt good and full, but he was thirstier than he had ever been in his entire life. Yikes!

This week we talked about ancient India. We read a library book about the Indus Valley Civilizations, sat in on an Indian dance class, and read Buddha by Demi. (Demi's books are just beautiful!) With Mei we colored in an Indian map and flag from Enchanted Learning, read from Grombrich’s A Little History, and looked at selections from The Little Book of Hindu Deities by Sanjay Patel.

Mei's India page

Thanks to my 16yo I learned a new word this week- chibi. I said that the Little Book of Hindu Deities was like Hello Kitty. However, my 16yo informed me that there is actually a name for that style of animation where the characters are little with big heads- chibi.

Chibi Hindu Gods!

In science we studied the inner planets and added Mercury, Venus, and Mars to our book. We also made a minibook comparing and contrasting Earth and Venus. Duncan also watched a video from the library.

Duncan tab-top book top; Mei tab-top book bottom

Mei and Duncan continued looking at Barron’s Spanish Every Day chapter 2. Duncan looked at numbers through 59 in The Complete Book of Spanish while Mei looked at numbers, question words and Spanish articles in The Everything Kids Learning Spanish Book.

On a fun note, Duncan joined Boy Scouts this week. We bought his little wolf things on Wednesday and he promptly memorized the cub scout pledge. Yesterday I had to take and hide his wolf book, because for some reason he thinks we must complete or begin everything in it immediately.

Past this is just my accountability journal. If you are interested in reading everything that I am logging as school this week, continue. If not, don’t bother. The rest is boring.

Memory Work
Duncan’s math memory work is pulled from Saxon 76 and his LA memory work is pulled from MCT Grammar Island, and his science memory work is pulled from Great Science Adventures Space. His history/ geography memory work is based on what we are studying.

List four ways we may indicate multiplication with numbers and variables.
1. with a times sign
2. with a dot
3. with parentheses
4. if one or both of the factors is a variable, then the factors may be written side by side.

What is the subject of a sentence?
The subject of a sentence is the part about which something is being said. (What are we talking about?)

What is the predicate of a sentence?
The predicate of a sentence is the part that says something about the subject.

List the inner planets.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

Tell me about Hinduism.
Hinduism began in Northern India near the Indus River about 4000 years ago.

Math
Kumon Math
Saxon 76- Lessons 43-47
Keys to Decimals looked at the end of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3
Penrose pp.12-19

Language Arts
SL LA 2 adv week 6 copywork and activity sheet
Ralph S. Mouse chapters 2-7 (reader)
Catwings by Ursula LeGuin (reader)
MCP Word Study D pp.26-29
Handwriting Help for Kids: Create Cursive
MCT Grammar Island pp.91-103; p.160 & 162 (in addition to identifying the underlined part of speech we analyzed some of these for words and parts of a sentence.)
Tuesday Poetry from the Random House Poetry book

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 10
colored in an Indian map and flag from Enchanted Learning
The Little Book of Hindu Deities by Sanjay Patel (selections from)
Indian dance class (without Mei)
Library books (without Mei)
Buddha by Demi (without Mei)

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 10, 11, and 12.
The Inner Planets VHS (without Mei)

Spanish
Barron’s Spanish Every Day Chapter 2
The Complete Book of Spanish- numbers

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 6